The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Today, a wide variety of computing devices, including many portable devices, support software applications that generate driving directions for navigating streets and roads (“navigation applications”). For example, navigation applications may run on laptop and tablet computers, mobile phones, car navigation systems, hand-held global positioning system (GPS) units, etc. In addition to generating driving directions, many of these devices may also support mapping applications that provide interactive digital maps of a geographic area corresponding to roads and locations described in the driving directions.
In general, navigation applications provide driving directions as sequence of instructions that describes a driving route between a starting location and a destination location. For example, an instruction can be “Turn right on First St.” or “Take exit 19 toward Third St.” Yet even if the driver follows these directions, it still may be difficult sometimes to legally and safely change lanes at different stages of the driving route. For instance, the driver may only have a limited amount of time, and a limited opportunity due to traffic or weather, to make a lane change before executing a maneuver suggested by the driving directions.